The present invention relates to a semiconductor device and, in particular, a semiconductor device including a temperature sensor.
As the integration density of components such as transistors in semiconductor devices has increased, there have been cases in which semiconductor devices have areas where the temperature rises locally due to heat generated by their operations. In related art, a temperature sensor is disposed in such a high-temperature area of a semiconductor device. Then, deterioration in functions of the semiconductor device is reduced by controlling the semiconductor device itself based on the output result from the temperature sensor.
For example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2007-220233 discloses a semiconductor chip including a temperature sensor that is disposed near a memory cell array and detects the temperature of the chip, an arithmetic circuit that processes the output from the temperature sensor, an oscillator, an output circuit, and a refresh circuit. Further, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2007-220233 also discloses a mode setting circuit that makes a setting as to whether a refresh operation should be performed or not for each of sub-memory cell arrays that are formed by dividing the memory cell array.
Further, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2013-101728 shows that a temperature sensor is disposed on an SoC (System on Chip) side.
Further, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2011-170943 mentions that a logic side receives information of a temperature sensor disposed on a DRAM side.